Terror Alert in South, IDF Beefs up Forces

The IDF has beefed up its presence in the south amid a report that terrorists from Gaza are planning to attack from Sinai.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 8/29/2011, 9:44 AM

IDF patrols near Sinai border

Flash 90

The IDF has beefed up its presence in the south amid a report that Islamic Jihad terrorists from Gaza are planning to attack from the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and bordering Israel.

Egypt has also been alerted.

Israel has allowed the new provisional military regime to deploy an additional 1,500 troops in the area to try to control terror, according to the Arabic language newspaper Al Hayat.

The Sinai always has been an area which Bedouin tribes and terrorists – some of them Bedouin and some of them Arab terrorists from Egypt and Gaza – have tried to control. They have staked out more claims of sovereignty since the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The latest terror alert comes almost two weeks after the murder of eight Israelis in multiple terrorist attacks near the Ovdat Airport on Highway 12, approximately half an hour northwest of Eilat.

The same area has been a crossing point for Africans from Sudan, Eritrea and other African countries. They often pay large sums of money to Bedouin for protection while crossing the Sinai until reaching near the border. The ease with which they cross the border is a sign for terrorists that also can do so without intervention.

Relations between Egypt and Israel were increasingly cool the past several years under the rule of former president Hosni Mubarak and have worsened since his ouster, which has paved the wave for more influence from the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement, from which Hamas is an offspring.

Egyptian media have even accused Israel of carrying out the terrorist attacks two weeks ago as a means to escalate tension and draw attention away from the anti-Netanyahu rallies in Tel Aviv.